Text Size

-

+

reset

But the cash influx could leave many members of Congress walking on political minefields as privacy advocates warn of potential infringement by drones and the unrelated issue of targeted killing operations by the Pentagon and CIA draws more fire.

Alarmed privacy advocates say drone technology could be used for nefarious purposes, and even journalists could use it to intrude on the reasonable expectation of privacy.

On Capitol Hill, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's 13-hour filibuster was squarely aimed at the CIA and Pentagon operations — and whether the Obama administration would ever undertake them on American soil. And liberal activists from Code Pink have repeatedly interrupted drone hearings.

Commercial drones already are being used by law-enforcement agencies and by others to forecast the weather, for geological and climate research and to survey landfills, among other things. And the Federal Aviation Administration is seeking to gather more information about all those uses as it prepares some drone guidelines by September 2015.

The competition for six congressionally mandated test sites has drawn 50 teams from 37 states. Set to be picked by the end of this year, the sites would be able to test the technology for a five-year period.

The states vying for the sites see an opportunity to tap into profitable new technology, arguing they could get a bigger chunk of a multibillion-dollar pie. But privacy advocates remain concerned that civil rights are at stake and that current laws aren't enough to limit drone surveillance.

At the outset of an FAA two-hour online listening session to gather public comments on privacy issues, Jim Williams, who heads the FAA's unmanned aircraft integration efforts, said the agency wouldn't respond to the concerns of each individual caller. But he did say that "there are many questions that must be answered before [the agency] is ready for safe integration."

"The UAS test sites required by the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 will provide the United States with testing and research facilities that will help answer UAS-related questions and enable us to retain our leadership role in aviation safety," he said.

Delays in selecting the federal test sites, Williams said, came because the agency wanted to be sure it could "adequately address the privacy concerns as they relate to operations."

But despite a longer wait to pick six applicants from a crowded field, some leading privacy groups still had their concerns and used the online listening session to air them.

"We've had aerial surveillance for a very long time, but drones bring a new capacity for surveillance simply because they're cheaper and easier to operate than traditional measures. Voluntary guidelines are not enough to address the privacy issues brought by drones," said Amie Stepanovich from the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Simply by the definition, these guidelines are both voluntary and not enforceable. They don't provide the necessary protections that people need to be protected from the persistent aerial surveillance that will be allowed under drones."